21st Century Dharma

Yeshe Rabbit: Being in the Flow

I release, I let go, I surrender to the flow.

Being in the Flow

The photo above is of a sacred spring dedicated to Sts. Catherine and Augustine, tucked into a small grotto off the main path in a medieval cemetery in Southwestern England. It is an otherworldly place I have visited on pilgrimage twice, and must visit once more to fulfill a promise I made there. I look forward to going back, and I long to sip the clear waters directly from this spring again. To me, this site represents a liquid gateway between the worlds…of life and death, of here and there, of then and now. As a person who traverses many different liminal spaces, I deeply appreciate the exquisite, finely-tuned vibration of this sanctuary, its quietude, and its gentle but immense power.

The last few months have been a study in liminality for me as Albert and I launched our nomadic lifestyle, moving north near Mt Shasta while simultaneously keeping a toe in the Oakland waters. We come down regularly to work in the store, attend CAYA Coven and other spiritual events, and spend time with friends, and then we head home to work intensively on our behind the scenes responsibilities and rest. We have also been traveling extensively for work and family this winter. “Being neither here nor there” has suddenly become a way of life rather than a temporary condition. I am learning some new lessons about impermanence through this experience, and I feel that this kind of life is in alignment with my spiritual calling as a wandering wild woman of Goddess dharma.

In my belief, we are actually never truly or completely “here or there.” It might be more accurate to say that I believe we are always both here AND there. We are flesh, and we are stardust. We are human, and we are divine. We are light and shadow at once. We are real, and unreal, at the same time. We are living pluralities, not convenient or easy to label and fix in stone, but rather dynamic forces of movement. In my view, Goddess is not a single being, she is a flag waving in the cosmic wind, rippling with many colors, names, stories, and possible truths. I see the waving banner of Goddess in all the realms I traverse. Recently, rapid and fast-paced travel has given me a dizzying view of the enormous, wide-swinging arc of her dance

Because of this, the concept of “Being in the Flow” as a spiritual practice is more important to me than ever. I have recently been shown that it is less valuable for me to define, pin down, and try to apprehend what is, and more valuable for me to learn again and again that what is right now is simply right now, and that if I resist the flow of what is right now, I will be swept up and washed away by it or worn down like stone over time by it. I have dedicated a large portion of my spiritual life to working with deities and spirits related to water and flow for this purpose. As a fixed Earth sign, I tend to get easily entranced by the illusion of permanence, and feel alarmed when things change, or when I cannot define them with crisp edges. The practice of Being in the Flow challenges this, and expands my capacity to create magic in my life and the world by calling me to abandon my seeming need for fixation in favor of spontaneity, and by forcing me to accept that my own worldview (even things that are seemingly very delineated and concrete) is incomplete.

What is one thing that you think you know for sure, or that you have chosen to accept wholesale, but when you look at it in a dynamic way, it might be challenged if circumstances or views changed? How can you Be in the Flow in your own mind, letting go of fixed ideas in favor of cultivating beginner’s mind or allowing for right now to stand on its own?